Abstract
A growing body of research supports the notion that cognitive abilities and personality are systematically related. However, this research has focused largely on global personality dimensions and single—often equally global—markers of cognitive ability. The present study offers a more fine-grained perspective. Specifically, it is one of the first studies to comprehensively investigate the associations between both fluid and crystallized intelligence with Big Five personality domains as well as their facets. Based on a heterogeneous sample of the adult population in Germany (N = 365), our study yielded three key findings. First, personality was more strongly related to crystallized intelligence than to fluid intelligence. This applied both to the total variance explained and to the effect sizes of most of the Big Five domains and facets. Second, facets explained a larger share of variance in both crystallized and fluid intelligence than did domains. Third, the associations of different facets of the same domain with cognitive ability differed, often quite markedly. These differential associations may substantially reduce—or even suppress—the domain-level associations. Our findings clearly attest to the added value of a facet-level perspective on the personality–cognitive ability interface. We discuss how such a fine-grained perspective can further theoretical understanding and enhance prediction.
Highlights
The relationships of cognitive abilities to “non-ability” traits such as personality have long been of interest to the study of individual differences
To obtain a more nuanced and complete picture of the relations between personality and cognitive ability, the present study investigated the associations of personality domains and their facets with both fluid and crystallized intelligence
We aimed to investigate the extent to which personality—in terms of the Big Five domains and their facets—was associated with fluid and crystallized intelligence
Summary
The relationships of cognitive abilities to “non-ability” traits such as personality have long been of interest to the study of individual differences. Some of the most eminent early theorists in this area shared the view that personality traits deserved to be studied alongside cognitive abilities, and they attempted to integrate both constructs into conceptual frameworks of human abilities. Vernon’s [3] model of the structure of educational abilities included an “X” factor as a placeholder for various personality traits and interests. Despite these ample theoretical foundations, few systematic empirical efforts to unravel the relations between cognitive ability and personality were made in the years that followed [4,5]. The Big Five is currently the most extensively validated and widely used model of personality, and, as such, it has greatly facilitated the systematic study of personality–ability
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